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KAANAPALI, MAUI – At around 4 p.m., the first canoe arrived at Kaanapali Beach after sailing the 27 miles around the northwestern corner of the second-largest Hawaiian Island. It was welcomed with the blow of a conch shell.
A total of eight teams of six crew members each had been racing their 45-foot-long canoes from Kahului to the popular resort area of Kaanapali. It took them approximately three hours, navigating with only a compass, paddles and reading the wind and swell. No conveniences of modern technology.
This is how the ancient Hawaiians traveled around the islands.
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The tradition is kept alive at the Waa Kiakahi Canoe Festival – now in its 20th year. The weekend-long festival is hosted by the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association (HSCA) and has been sponsored by Kaanapali Beach Resort Association for the last several years.
Every June, travelers can break away from enjoying the award-winning beach and array of restaurants and hotels in Kaanapali for a unique opportunity that only happens once a year: to get a glimpse of what it's like to ride one of these sailing canoes and its importance in Hawaiian culture.
"Kaanapali Beach Resort attracts visitors eager for memorable activities and authentic cultural experiences. By sponsoring Waa Kiakahi, the resort can align itself with an event that promotes public education about a sport representing a modern adaptation of traditional Hawaiian voyaging," said Shelley Kekuna, executive director of Kaanapali Beach Resort Association.
The festival took place between races, giving the elite watermen and women a chance to educate the public on the longstanding cultural practice. Afterward, the teams embark on another race from Maui to Molokai and back.
"I feel like it's important, honestly, because without sailing canoes there would be no Hawaiians in Hawaii so it's a huge cornerstone of the culture and just to be a participant in it and learn about it is a lot," said Jason Dameron, a Kauai resident who's been sailing canoes for around 25 years and is part of the Olukai team that won the race. "It's a beautiful community of people from all over the state, and you're always learning new things and every race is an adventure."
Cultural connections
Canoes hold a deep significance in Hawaii. It's how the islands were first populated, when ancient voyaging Polynesians reached the Hawaiian Islands on larger double-hulled canoes over 1,600 years ago.
In the 1970s during the Hawaiian Renaissance – an era when Native Hawaiians revitalized their cultural practices after being oppressed or outright banned by Western missionaries – a group of Hawaiian watermen and women set out to recreate a traditional voyaging canoe called the Hokulea. Using only the ancient navigational methods of wayfinding, such as observing the stars and measuring wind patterns, the Hokulea sailed over 3,000 miles on its maiden voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976.
But there are many types of waa, which is the Hawaiian word for canoe. The HSCA's canoes are single-mast, fitting six people and equipped with a sail. They have the ability to reach up to 25 miles per hour.
"I always compare it to a family car, a canoe like that would be used for shorter runs," said Dameron. It's what people would take for fishing trips or travel to another side of their island.
The concept of racing canoes is hardly new, with some reports tracing back to Kamehameha V, who lived during the mid-1800s. There's little known or recorded about it before then.
From May to September, it's racing season for the HSCA members. They sail the channels connecting the Hawaiian Island chain. The longest leg is from Haleiwa on Oahu's North Shore to Nawiliwili on Kauai's southeastern coastline. It's a total of 100 miles, about eight hours in open water, often without sight of land and always no modern instruments. It's just the crew and their knowledge of the sea.
Every person has a critical role for the performance of the canoe – especially in a race. One or two people in the back steer with a hand blade, while someone sits in a net to pull or release the sail depending on the wind. With nature ever-changing, crew members must be in constant communication.
Conditions can get rough, with the 800-pound canoes bouncing atop the water, fighting wind and waves. Sometimes people fall off, or the canoes capsize. During races, escort boats are on standby for safety.
At Waa Kiakahi, guests are taken out on much easier, gentler rides just offshore from the beach to get a feel for gliding in a canoe. It feels like flying on the ocean's surface, like a bird skimming the water.
"It's always fun taking people out who've never done it, and just sort of vicariously reliving that first experience you had when you first did it," said Dameron. "It's infectious."
Breaking down barriers
The weekend was especially significant for Wahine Makani, the only all-women crew, because it was their first official race. In Hawaiian, wahine means "women" and makani is "wind." According to the team's website, Wahine Makani is the first all-women team in the association in over a decade, and seeks to "restore space" in the male-dominated sport.
It's captained by Maui resident Jamie Nease, a paddler who got into sailing canoes when she wanted to learn how to cross the 30-mile-long challenging Alenuihaha Channel between Maui and Hawaii Island. When Nease first joined canoe sailing, she said there were only one or two women on each team.
"It was really exciting and nerve-wracking for our first race – a lot of doubt, a lot of fear," said Nease. "We had to use what we learned and everything that we practiced and do it successfully."
Finishing the race felt like a "confidence booster" for the team, and helped settle any "doubt that women can even do this," she added.
Canoe sports are heavily male-dominated, but there's a shift being led by waterwomen who want to compete just as much as the men do. More women are joining the new generation of sailors, paddlers and voyagers.
In 2024, a woman became the first to captain and navigate the Hokulea on its Hawaii-to-Tahiti voyage. There's also the all-women Na Wahine O Ke Kai race, in which paddlers take on the arduous Kaiwi Channel from Oahu to Molokai, which began in 1979 with 17 teams. It has grown to 70, according to the race's website.
Canoe sailing requires immense strength, which can feel intimidating and become a barrier to accessing the sport. For example, without a keel or rudder, the canoes are steered by just hand blades fighting all that force. Since the canoes were designed for men, according to Nease, the Wahine Makani women have redesigned features of theirs to steer with more precision and work for them.
The camaraderie between the canoe sailing community is apparent when everyone rushes down to the water to help each arriving canoe get past the crashing shorebreak and onto the beach.
Canoe sailing may be evolving as a sport, but its athletes will always honor its longstanding heritage and place in Hawaii.
This story has been updated to refresh headlines.
The reporter on this story received access to this event from the Kaanapali Beach Resort Association. USA TODAY maintains editorial control of content.
Kathleen Wong is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY. She's the author of "The Conscious Traveller Hawai'i" and is based in Hawaii.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Visiting Maui? See how ancient Hawaiians sailed at this festival
